Saddam’s Shi’a Lynch Mob
Time Magazine actually delivers some pretty good historical context to the goings ons in Iraq. This is all, of course, beyond the comprehension of those running American foreign policy today, and explains why we are in a real shit show when it comes to what the future holds for us, to say nothing about what the tortured land of Iraq is in store for.
Just as consequential, for Sunnis and anyone else who knows Iraqi history, Saddam’s executioners shouted the name of Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, Muqtada’s father-in-law. Ayatollah Sadr, whom Saddam executed in 1980, is perhaps as responsible as Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini for modern, resurgent Shi’a Islam. Sadr founded the Da’wa Party, a violent, secretive organization committed to the creation of an Iraqi Shi ‘a Islamic republic, and today a political party that counts none other than Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as a member
In 1979, Sadr and the Da’wa took the side of the Iranian revolution, sparking demonstrations and unrest across Iraq. After Sadr’s Da’wa attempted to assassinate Hussein’s longtime foreign minister Tariq Aziz on April 1, 1980, Saddam, in fairly quick succession, executed Sadr and invaded Iran. Saddam was convinced that unless he pre-empted Sadr - in other words, Iran - he would end up on the gallows. Two years later, in Dujail, the Da’wa did try to assassinate Saddam. Saddam’s brutal retribution against Dujail is what got him hanged last Saturday.
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Only time will tell us what Sadr intends do with Iraq if he ever does take over. But the Sunnis today will tell you they don’t need to wait. On Saturday, they saw all the evidence they needed: the symbolism of executing Saddam on the Muslim High Holiday of Id al-Adha as a gift to the Shi’a, and and the decision of Maliki to get special approval from Iraq’s senior Shi’a clerics, the ‘marja’iya,’ to carry out the execution on that day.
No one is ever going to take a poll, but it’s safe to say that most Sunni fear Ayatollah Sadr’s dream of an Iraqi Shi’a Islamic republic has already come true.
There is more on the whole sorry affair of how the hanging of Saddam Hussein went down and the sure blowback to result from it this piece Lynching The Dictator in Slate, by Christopher Hitchens of all people. The references to George Orwell’s tract Revenge Is Sour was particularly apt.
on January 5th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
the very fact that saddam took power through a coup and that he executed sadr without any trial is not important, but when he’s executed, everyone talks about how bad sadr would have been!, in fact saddam had been much more harsh to sadr during his execution than iraqi officials to saddam, given that sadr was trialled for attempt to terror though no prove to that, but saddam is in fact responsible for so many killings of shias, Kurds and Iranians during the war with iran. it is good to see the realities instead of hypothesizing about what might had happened,